Eurodefense Nederland nieuws

Op 24 februari 2022 viel Rusland de Oekraïne binnen. Dit conflict speelt al lang. Waarom slaat president Poetin nu pas toe? Nu een militaire operatie, wat gaat hierna gebeuren? In het KRO/NCRV programma M gaf Eurodefense Nederland lid Ron Keller, een oud-Nederlandse ambassadeur in Kiev en Moskou die Poetin meerdere malen heeft ontmoet een toelichting. Volg deze link om het programma te bekijken .

From War on the Rocks: ''With NATO, the United States often tries to have it all: U.S. leadership of the alliance and increased allied burden-sharing. Indeed, in   addressing   the Munich Security Conference in February 2021, President Joe Biden emphasized to allies that that the “U.S. is back” and is determined “to earn back our position of trusted leadership,” while welcoming “Europe’s growing investment in the military capabilities that enable our shared defense.”

C ompeting visions of European strategic autonomy have been widely debated in European Union (EU) policy circles. The term itself has undergone a fast evolution: from an initial focus on defence to inclusion of a much broader set of security considerations such as the economy, health or technology, to name just a few. At its core, however, the concept retains an important defence dimension.

The Netherlands Clingendael Institute of International Relations published a policy brief titled: "European Defence: Specialisation by Capability Groups"  Dick Zandee writes: In many professions specialisation is regarded as a virtue. In a hospital the surgeon, the anaesthetist and the nurse have specialised skills. Together they engage in teamwork to cure patients. Yet, when it comes to defence, specialisation has a negative connotation. Contrary to the hospital’s operating theatre, dependency on each other’s armed forces is regarded as a serious, if not unacceptable risk, as a country has to be able to defend itself without relying on capabilities to be provided by other states. Read and download the report here The Netherlands MoD has included task specialisation within in the European Union as policy goal for 2035. Implementation comprises intensified cooperation as well as active participation in pooling and sharing initiatives. Read page 35 (Design principle 9) of the ...

The Strategic Compass for the EU’s security and defence policy, to be adopted in 2022, must generate immediate action. The best way of ensuring that is to prepare new capability initiatives and, potentially, new operational engagements now, so that they can be launched simultaneously with the Strategic Compass. In that light, “the development of an initial-entry force as a pool of Member State forces that train and exercise together and are made available to the EU” (as summarised in an EEAS working paper), is one of the most promising ideas on the table. How to make it work? Photo Credits: New Zealand Defence Force from Wellington, New Zealand, Wikimedia Commons

  The webinar “ European Green Deal and Defence ” will take place on the 1 st october, from 18:00 to 19:30  (Brussels time).   The event is organized by the EURODEFENSE EWG 1b working group with the aim of presenting and  discussing the findings of the European working group 26b ‘’ Energy, Cli mate, Security and Defence ’’.   Click here to register for the upcoming EURODEFENSE webinar: The link to the meeting will follow a few days before the meeting starts  Programme   18:00 | Welcome by Mr Patrice Mompeyssin  Acting Secretary-General of the EURODEFENSE Network   Patrice Mompeyssin is Brigadier General (2S) and Secretary-General of the   EURODEFENSE Network, with a long and rich career at EuroDéfense France and   in the French Army. Graduated at the renowned Academy of Saint-Cyr, he had   throughout his career numerous command missions in France and abroad, both   in the service of...

Picture courtesy NL MoD Afghanistan: Can history tell us what to do? No, but history can certainly tell us what not to do! A personal view of Iric A. van Doorn ( Vice President Eurodefense Netherlands) Wassenaar (NL) 18 September 2021 The West, and in particular the USA, has a long history of often violent and usually unsuccessful attempts at regime changes. After the Cold War the US-neo-conservative global strategy was based on US supremacy and exceptionalism and its goal was global control. The act of terrorism of 9/11 was a consequence of the role of the USA in the Middle East; blind support for the State of Israel, the first Gulf war, activating Muslim activists to get the Russians out of Afghanistan and support for dictatorial regimes. 9/11 was utilized to realise US-expansion plans. The military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq had a tenuous link with “hunting” a group of terrorists. That is a professional job for the police and the “Services”. We now know the consequences: Al Qa...

Afghanistan heeft het defensiedebat over Europese zelfstandigheid opnieuw aangewakkerd, ziet   Michel Kerres in het NRC .   Zal er deze keer iets van terechtkomen? Voorzitter van de Europese Raad Charles Michel, maakt zich wekelijks sterk voor een zelfstandigere EU – deze week  in een interview met een Franse denktank . Europarlementariërs van Renew Europe togen aan het begin van het politieke seizoen deze week naar Parijs en namen er een  verklaring aan waarin uitdrukkelijk wordt gepleit voor een Europese defensie .  Renew Europe is de politieke familie waartoe behalve Macron en Michel ook premier Rutte behoort, doorgaans geen grote vriend van Europese defensieavonturen.  Ook de twee frontrunners in de Duitse verkiezingen togen alvast maar eens voor kennismaking naar het Elysée. Olaf Scholz (SPD) liet er een paar keer de term „strategische autonomie” vallen. Armin Laschet (CDU/CSU) pleitte in een  gedetailleerd ingezonden stuk voor een Europese Veilig...

In attached Macdonald-Laurier Institute Policy Brief, Ralph Thiele President of Eurodefense Germany, warns in an essay that NATO lags in terms of its understanding of complex hybrid warfare challenges and the capabilities needed to address such threats. At particular risk are the alliance’s members in Eastern Europe and the Baltics. As a result, NATO faces the serious risk that the alliance’s solidarity could be compromised by actors such as Russia. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Tristan Bolden